By Gergely Orosz, the author of The Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter and Building Mobile Apps at Scale
Navigating senior, tech lead, staff and principal positions at tech companies and startups. An Amazon #1 Best Seller. New: the hardcover is out! As is the audibook. Now available in 6 languages.
The scenes at the police station are harrowing, illustrating how the law can be bent and broken by those sworn to protect it.
While some historical liberties were taken for dramatic effect (such as the two Conlons sharing a cell), the film’s "emotional truth" remains undisputed. It is a scathing indictment of the and a reminder of the human cost of political expediency.
At the heart of the film is as Gerry Conlon. His transformation from a feckless, long-haired petty thief in Belfast to a hardened, righteous crusader is staggering. However, the film’s emotional anchor is Pete Postlethwaite as Giuseppe Conlon. His portrayal of a man of quiet, unshakeable dignity—maintaining his moral compass even while rotting in a cell for a crime he didn’t commit—provides the necessary friction to Gerry’s volatile energy. The Dynamics of Injustice Sheridan deftly balances three distinct acts:
In the Name of the Father isn’t just a movie about a wrongful conviction; it’s a story about the reclamation of identity. When Gerry finally bursts out of the Old Bailey, declaring himself a free man, it isn't just a legal victory—it’s a spiritual one.
The film captures the frantic, paranoid atmosphere of the Troubles, where a single mistake can lead to a lifetime of consequences.
Jim Sheridan’s 1993 masterpiece, In the Name of the Father , stands as one of the most visceral depictions of institutional injustice ever put to film. Based on the true story of the "Guildford Four," the film transcends the boundaries of a political thriller to become a profound, aching study of a father-son relationship tested by the crushing weight of the British legal system. A Masterclass in Performance
The book is separated into six standalone parts, each part covering several chapters:
Parts 1 and 6 apply to all engineering levels: from entry-level software developers to principal or above engineers. Parts 2, 3, 4 and 5 cover increasingly senior engineering levels. These four parts group topics in chapters – such as ones on software engineering, collaboration, getting things done, and so on.
This book is more of a reference book that you can refer back to, as you grow in your career. I suggest skimming over the career levels and chapters that you are familiar with, and focus reading on topics you struggle with, or career levels where you are aiming to get to. Keep in mind that expectations can vary greatly between companies.
In this book, I’ve aimed to align the topics and leveling definitions closer to what is typical at Big Tech and scaleups: but you might find some of the topics relevant for lower career levels in later chapters. For example, we cover logging, montiroing and oncall in Part 5: “Reliable software systems” in-depth: but it’s useful – and oftentimes necessary! – to know about these practices below the staff engineer levels.
The Software Engineer's Guidebook is available in multiple languages:
You should now be able to ask your local book shops to order the book for you via Ingram Spark Print-on-demand - using the ISBN code 9789083381824. I'm also working on making the paperback more accessible in additional regions, including translated versions. Please share details here if you're unable to get the book in your country and I'll aim to remedy the situation.
I'd like to think so! The book can help you get ideas on how to help software engineers on your team grow. And if you are a hands-on engineering manager (which I hope you might be!) then you can apply the topics yourself! I wrote more about staying hands-on as an engineering manager or lead in The Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter.
I've gotten this variation of a question from Data Engineers, ML Engineers, designers and SREs. See the more detailed table of contents and the "Look inside" sample to get a better idea of the contents of the book. I have written this book with software engineers as the target group, and the bulk of the book applies for them. Part 1 is more generally applicable career advice: but that's still smaller subset of the book.